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Comment by Pica_soO | Hacker News Reader

I think the problem the movie crew faced, was that GitS basically needs something like the Marvel Universe stretching to retell the story. Most of the episodes of GitS2 would have made for a Stand Alone movie. So what to do? The original is in particular running against the usual hollywood conventions. There is no visible villain, until late, then the villian turns out to be a grey area guy, hunted by other grey area guys.

>the culture series is longing for a movie

Honestly, i hate it when book SciFi gets put into movie shape. Its rarely looks like i imagined it.

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I am surprised no-one mentioned "Ready Player One" yet. It is a NY Times best seller and Steven Spielberg is set to direct it in 2018. Great book, often referred to as a NERDGASM ;-) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/books/ready-player-one-by-...

I found that book to be dreadful and couldn't make it through. The initial worldbuilding was interesting but then it seemed to turn into an endless loop of "HEY DO YOU REMEMBER THIS THING FROM THE 80'S WASN'T IT AWESOME?".

Oh my god same reaction. I thought it was just awful. I was so excited to read it, got that same initial impression, and then was slowly ground into utter boredom as the plot devolved to just one 80s culture reference after another with little no real character development or story intricacy.

I think you really need to appreciate and get into the 80s nostalgia. If that doesn't work for you--or you just don't have the cultural background--the [EDIT: book] probably isn't for you.

If it was about a topic or era where 90% of the references meant nothing to me, I don't think I'd have liked it either.

Personally I loved it even though I was never a hardcore gamer in that vein and I know others in the same boat. But I certainly get your criticism.

I generally enjoy that stuff, and I think that it made the book worse for me. Example: Referencing Tomb of Horrors as some kind of forgotten lore? Preposterous! That module is iconic. Whatever module he used should have been something I'd never heard of.

Each their own of course. Perhaps you'd like Robopocalypse more. It's written by someone with a PhD in robotics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robopocalypse

Likewise. It started off SO well, but then the 80s (and a couple of misplaced early 90s) references became too frequent and it felt like the author was just off on his own nostalgia trip and the actual story was secondplace.

About halfway through, I also felt it took a direct shift into 'teen romance' as if the publisher had read the draft thus far and said 'y'know, with xyz added this would make a great film for the 12-15 yr old audience!'

Going in, I was hoping it was to be a homage to things I loved growing up, but what I ended up with was a pile of teen-fict no better than Twilight.

I am a little bit bitter about RP1, can you tell?

Right now I'm reading Kim Stanley Robinsion's '2312'. It's very similar to some of the Culture novels - indeed I picked it up after feeling the loss of no more Iain M Banks books coming... If you like Culturesque stuff, I can totally recommend it.

Yep, it definitely felt like a couple of sentences of plot followed by a page of 80s trivia copied from Wikipedia.

"A page" is putting it mildly.

This was the book that taught me to not trust recommendations from HN uncritically. God I hate it.

Maybe it's not the right audience here. Ready player One is a total YAF, so not many adults will find it fun. I did enjoy reading it, but at the same time thought it wasn't great quality. A bit like finding a really fun article in a trashy magazine.

I feel like Ender's Game is in the same category.

The biggest strength of Ender's Game is how many of us as a child could identify with it. Before the Internet a bookish nerd kid very often had a very hard time finding anyone even remotely similar. Ender called to us and gave us hope that if there's a book then perhaps there are others out there. Translating this into a movie is near impossible but also the time for it has passed.

The essence of YAF really. A kid just like you who can change the world! I did read some Card books again around 30, and can't find much interesting in them anymore :-(

YAF?

Young Adult Fiction.

It was a nostalgia-gasm for Gen X/Y people like me who grew up in the 80's. That feeling was so strong, that it allowed me to power through the sub-par writing and plot. I just skimmed through and only paid attention to the references. Without these, I don't think I could've gotten through the first chapter.

I'd fully expect the movie to be superior to the book. Then again, that's not saying much.

> Honestly, i hate it when book SciFi gets put into movie shape. Its rarely looks like i imagined it.

Well, that problem is hardly specific to SciFi. If you read a book first, then watch the movie adaptation, the result is nearly always disappointing.

In fact, the only counter-examples I can think of right now are Inherent Vice and No Country For Old Men.

I think the arch-challenge, Lord of the Rings, went pretty well all things considered (the first three, I don't even rate the latter movies).

Gotta respectfully disagree with you here. I sincerely regret watching the LoTR movies, as reading the books now is impossible without imagining the specific actors in the movie (Wood's whiny interpretation of Frodo is especially bad). Before I watched the movies, I had my own image of these characters and they were so much more nebulous, vivid, alive, mysterious, majestic, etc.. I mean, surfing on an oliphant? Geez. Also the way they butchered the relationship between Frodo and Sam I thought was atrocious. Not saying there were no good things about it, but again, would have elected to not see it if I had the choice again.

I haven't seen Inherent Vice, but I totally agree about No Country for Old Men. One of the differences there might be that both of those movies were made by very accomplished directors, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers respectively. They might have the confidence to put their own interpretation of the story into their movie that lesser known directors dont feel comfortable doing.

Yeah, they tried to change GitS around by picking the aesthetics, but putting a traditional hollywood action flick plot on top. Even disregarding, the autismal ire from the weaboo crowd, it's still a bit flat. I hope the lesson people pick from this disaster (movie made barely 60% of its expenditures during opening week), is not that anime fans are impossible to please, but that people like good engaging movies and just aping the facade of something successful doesn't mean you've captured its spirit.

> but that people like good engaging movies and just aping the facade of something successful doesn't mean you've captured its spirit

I feel amateurs of cinematography have been saying that for years, but evidently some market analysis must have proven that "wrong" for studio executives. In a very big machine, like those studios, the level of craftsmanship -on all levels- will be very high while the artistry of it will fade behind the marketing goal.

> but evidently some market analysis must have proven that "wrong" for studio executives

I think that might have been the Transformers movie series and similar successful reboots that appeal to a very broad audience. Those are basically effects movies with additional hype generated by a pre-existing fandom.

I sometimes think that some execs just desperately try to get control, metrics and reliability on every creative process, and in that process destroy their franchises. No evil intent i guess, just a attempt to sleep better at night, have a more solid illusion of control over once life.

Its visible in games too- the hunt for the golden formula, which then leaves the market open for good old disruptive "art". Risk management by reducing risk management, that's a little paradox right in the backyard.

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